"Constable Ichabod Crane of the New York police arrives in the small village of Sleepy Hollow in 1799 to solve a mystery of murders. With all the victims found with their heads missing, everybody in Sleepy Hollow is talking about the ghost of the "headless horseman" who is out in the woods seeking revenge for his murder many years ago. Crane, believing only in logic, refuses to believe the public's theory about the horseman and begins his investigations, only to find his faith shattered when he himself encounters the headless horseman. A magical tale of sense against myth."

(Summary taken from IMDB)

Pictures: http://www.dailycollage.com/collages/depp/01-johnny-depp-sleepy-hollow-800x600.jpg

The movie started off promising, then it became monotonous and somewhat boring. However, just as I was about to turn off the player, the story became interesting again and kept me on the edge of my seat until the end.

As of every Tim Burton movie, the sets were visually stunning, creating a very appropriately gothic and eerie feel to the entire movie. Not really for the faint-hearted, I suppose, as it featured some very graphic scenes of heads being chopped off at close range, dismembered heads spewing with blood and more. However, surprisingly, I was relatively ok with it and was even able to watch the movie all alone in the middle of the night and not break into cold sweat when I turn off the lights. I suppose the overall story kind of off-set the gory feel to it. And by that, I'm not saying that the story was extremely good, but as I said, it started off with an interesting premise yet drifted off into a very slow pace and it wasn't long until I started to feel that somehow, the story just wasn't going anywhere. Many scenes and even some dialogues felt redundant, especially the many scenes of supposed affection between Johnny Depp's Ichabod and Christina Ricci's Katrina. If there was supposed to be love between the both of them, I couldn't feel it. In fact, the love story seems to be included just for the sake of being there, nothing more. Fortunately, things started to pick up (the main story, that is, not the love story) and from then on the movie almost became one of the best horror movies I've ever watched (not that I've watched many, anyway =P)

Performance-wise, the acting was average in general. Yes, even Johnny Depp, IMHO. Maybe I just wasn't used to his interpretation of Ichabod Crane. Anyhow, I can't find a way to describe my feeling towards his acting. Sometimes his delivery was too dead-pan and dull, possibly even sleep-inducing (the dialouges didn't help either), yet sometimes I felt he was trying too hard to portray the timid and squeamish yet full of righteousness Ichabod. Or maybe it's just the character itself which is conflicting, I'm not sure. Whatever it is, don't expect any Captain Jack Sparrow or James Matthew from Depp in Sleepy Hollow.

However, for someone like me who doesn't watch horror movies, this was a pretty good movie on the whole. I enjoyed it for its mythical elements which was tied to an intriguing mystery. Towards the 2nd half the movie became really exciting which made me wanna just watch on and see what really happens. The last few scenes were a little of an anti-climax, but fortunately that didn't mar the overall effect.

Not the best, but definitely enjoyable and worth a look.


Trivia:

I'm not one who reads classic novels but apparently this is one is based on a classic novel that was written by Washington Irving (1783 - 1859)

Features a cameo by Christopher Lee (not our local actor, by the way, but the wonderful actor who portrayed Saruman in LOTR and Count Dooku in the Star Wars prequels)

Squeamishness and eccentricity were reported to be personality traits of Ichabod in the original novel.

Ichabod Crane faints six times in the movie. (hahahaha... yup, love those scenes!)